Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

If you’re just joining us here’s a quick recap of what we’ve been covering today before we close.

After a series of Russian drone strikes on Ukraine overnight, we’ve been verifying the locations of the attacks and investigating reports of drones coming down in neighbouring Moldova and Romania.

BBC Verify’s policy and analysis correspondent Ben Chu has taken a look at whether two-child limit on benefits pushed up child poverty in the UK. Click here to read his conclusions.

Plus, have you seen a video of a dog rescuing a kitten from a flood in Thailand? Unfortunately, the flooding is real but the animals are not.

Our late shift in London and team in Washington will be across the BBC's verification and fact-check requests for the rest of the day.

BBC Verify Live is back tomorrow for what is Budget day in the UK.

Barbara Metzler, Erwan Rivault and Shruti Menon
BBC Verify

We’ve been reviewing satellite data showing how volcanic gas from Ethiopia during Sunday’s eruption of the Hayli Gubbi volcano has spread thousands of miles east.

Using Sentinel-5P - a satellite that monitors air pollution and gases in the atmosphere - we’ve created a map to track where sulphur dioxide emissions have travelled.

On the day of the eruption on 23 November, the plume was visible over north-eastern Ethiopia. By the next day, it had travelled over the Gulf of Aden and through Yemen and Oman.

As of this morning, the sulphur dioxide was visible in northern India and had crossed over the Himalayas to reach China.

The dark red areas in the map represent the highest amount of sulphur dioxide, which can impact air quality, climate and human health.

Scientists look for the spread of sulphur dioxide after an eruption as it also gives a good idea where volcanic ash may be present in the atmosphere.

In India, the volcanic ash has impacted flights today as the country’s aviation regulator advised airlines to avoid the affected areas, including the capital city of New Delhi.

Paul Brown
BBC Verify senior journalist

A satellite image captured this morning confirms that at least two aircraft have been destroyed in a Ukranian attack on an airfield in Taganrog, a city in Russia’s southern Rostov region.

Ukraine’s military said in a Telegram post earlier it had likely hit a Beriev A-60 aircraft in the attack, as part of a wave of overnight drone and missile strikes on Russian military targets.

The post also shared a photo of a burning aircraft that appears to match an A-60, a modified experimental plane used as a flying laboratory for laser technology.

One of the damaged aircraft seen in the satellite image from Planet Labs LLC is the same length and has the same wingspan as an A-60. We have asked experts to review the available pictures.

The Ukrainian military statement also claimed to have struck an aircraft repair plant and a drone manufacturing facility in Taganrog.

The satellite image does show damage to a hangar next to the destroyed aircraft and smoke rising from a building around a mile (1.5km) to the north, but we cannot verify the purpose of these structures through this imagery alone.

Marco Silva
BBC Verify senior journalist

Social media users have been urged to stop using artificial intelligence to create fake pictures of animals caught up in the flooding that has swept through the south of Thailand.

Earlier, we reported on viral images of a dog rescuing a cat from rising waters, which an expert told us were likely manipulated using AI tools.

Images of other animals — including crocodiles, hippos, and snakes — have also been spreading online, often shared by users poking fun at these supposedly heroic animal rescues.

But a Facebook page purportedly linked to a branch of the People’s Party in Songkhla — one of the provinces affected by flooding — suggests sharing these AI pictures comes with consequences.

In the post published on Sunday it was claimed that, after a large snake entered houses in the city of Hat Yai, rescuers were delayed because someone claimed this was “AI”.

BBC Verify has not been able to independently confirm the allegation and we have asked the page’s administrator for further details.

“This matter is serious and urgent”, read the post calling for the public’s co-operation. “Government agencies and local media should also verify images before posting them.”

Sherie Ryder and Dzhafer Umerov
BBC Verify

We’ve been looking at a number of social media posts showing what appear to be Russian drones that have come down in rural areas of Moldova and Romania.

In Moldova, a drone was removed from the roof of a building in a rural location which we could geolocate by looking at surrounding trees, roofs and a closer inspection of a window.

On the tail, we could see a red Z sprayed on the side, which is widely used as a pro-war symbol in Russia.

Police identified the drone as a Gerbera - a Russian made variant of the Iranian Shahed - but without an explosive payload.

The drone has been taken away for inspection. We sent the image to Stuart Ray, senior imagery analyst at McKenzie Intelligence Services Ltd, who confirmed to us it was a Gerbera.

“The Russians now build these on license and have modified them to have a longer range but less of a payload. They can also be used for reconnaissance and as a decoy,” he told us.

Image source, Facebook/ Poliția Republicii Moldova

In Romania, which shares a 400-mile (640km) border with Ukraine, we saw reports of a drone landing in a house’s courtyard in the village of Puiesti.

Romania’s Defence Minister Ionut Mosteanu said Nato pilots came close to shooting down a drone which entered the country’s airspace.

They held off firing over concern about causing damage on the ground, he added.

We were able to match the entrance to the courtyard, along with drainage ducts on the road, with Google Maps Street View. Reverse Image Searches confirmed the images are new.

Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify Live journalist

Social media platform X has introduced a feature that shows how many times an account has changed its username. It’s part of a raft of changes aimed at identifying users’ locations that BBC Verify has been investigating.

Compare my X profile with the @IvankaNews_ account, which we reported yesterday had been revealed to be based in Nigeria. In nearly 10 years I’ve changed my username only once, and that was right after joining what was then Twitter during an early moment of indecision.

By contrast the @IvankaNews_ account has changed username 11 times since 2010, most recently in August last year.

Prof Tuğrulcan Elmas, a computational social science researcher from Edinburgh University, says username changes like this are a hallmark of "misleading repurposing".

Other indications include older posts being deleted and long periods of inactivity before rebranding, he says.

Rather than start a new account from scratch, Elmas says, users can repurpose existing accounts with large numbers of followers to suit their needs. These needs can range from political influence to generating engagement for money.

In research Elmas carried out in 2023, he recorded that 106,548 accounts with more than 5,000 followers on X had been repurposed from a sample 1.57 million - which is about one in seven. Almost 30% of these accounts were then suspended or deleted by X.

Benedict Garman and Kevin Nguyen
BBC Verify senior journalists

Controversial US-Israeli aid group the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has confirmed it is ending operations, despite recently constructing two new sites and launching an Arabic-language Facebook page.

BBC Verify previously reported that the GHF suspended operations at its four aid distribution sites when the Israel-Hamas ceasefire began on 10 October, despite being funded until the end of this month.

Satellite imagery from 18 November showed signs of recent activity at two new sites that never opened, including new vehicles and changing layouts, although their purpose is unclear.

The aid group began operating in Gaza in February and aimed to bypass the UN as the main supplier of aid. It was criticised by existing aid organisations who refused to work with the system, calling it unethical and unsafe.

The GHF’s operations saw several deadly shootings near its site, chaotic scenes of crowds clamouring for aid and the use of non-lethal crowd dispersion tactics.

While confirming its closure, the GHF said yesterday it will “maintain readiness” and will not dissolve as a registered non-governmental organisation.

It referred questions about the future use of its sites to the US-led Civil-Military Coordination Centre (CMCC), which was set up as part of the ceasefire deal. The GHF’s executive director Jon Acree said the CMSS and international organisations would be “adopting and expanding the model GHF piloted”.

The CMCC has not responded to a request for comment.

Marco Silva and Thomas Copeland
BBC Verify

Images of a dog rescuing a cat from floods in southern Thailand have been shared widely across social media - including one X post that has been viewed almost two million times - but are likely to have been manipulated using artificial intelligence tools, an expert has told BBC Verify.

The pictures include a timestamp indicating they were taken in the southern Songkhla province on 22 November at around 20:00 local time.

But at this time of the year sunset is roughly two hours earlier in that region, making the time stamp implausible as the images appear to have been taken in daylight.

In the photo showing both animals already on the boat, the cat’s fur and hind legs also appear to merge with the dog’s right front paw - a type of anomaly commonly found in AI-generated images.

“The image of the animals on the boat shows signs of manipulation by generative AI,” says Dr Peter Bentley, a computer scientist at University College London.

He also pointed out inconsistencies in the lighting.

“The lighting on the cat’s head also is inconsistent with its placement under the towel suggesting that the cat photo may have been added afterwards and merged in with AI.”

Separately, we ran the image through Synth ID Detector, a AI detection tool developed by Google, which concluded with “very high confidence” that all three images were made with Google AI.

An estimated 1.9 million people are thought to have been affected by flooding in southern Thailand following days of heavy rain.

Ben Chu
BBC Verify policy and analysis correspondent

Image source, PA Media

We have been looking at the impact of the two-child limit on benefits since it was introduced by the Conservatives, following speculation that UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves may lift it in this week’s Budget.

There is some evidence from researchers, external that the policy has contributed to higher poverty rates among children in larger families since it came into effect in 2017.

The poverty rate for all children has been steady since 2009 at around 30%.

But the poverty rate for children in families where there are three or more kids has been rising, from 40% in 2017 to around 44% today. There are also signs that the gap between larger and smaller families has widened since the limit was introduced.

Other research suggests the policy, external has only had a very small impact on whether people decide to have more than two children.

It’s estimated by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, external that the long-term cost of scrapping the limit would be £3.6bn a year.

Paul Brown
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, Ukraine Prosecutor's Office

At least seven people have been killed in overnight Russian strikes on Ukraine’s capital, according to the Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko.

We've verified two locations showing damage in the city based on photos released by Ukraine's Prosecutor's office.

The Ukrainian Air Force said the attack involved cruise and Kinzhal hypersonic air-launched ballistic missiles as well as Russian Shahed drones.

Footage verified by us shows extensive damage at a supermarket distribution centre in the Sviatoshynskyi district. The company - Novus - has confirmed that four delivery drivers were killed in the strike and the site is not currently operational.

"The centre was built and opened during the full-scale invasion as a symbol of resilience, development and faith in the future... Despite the blow, there will be no shortage of goods in stores," Novus said in a post on Facebook.

We've also seen damage to a residential high-rise building located around 8km (5 miles) to the west of the Novus site where several floors appear to have been damaged.

After the resignations of director general Tim Davie and CEO of News Deborah Turness, MPs on the Culture, Media and Sport (CMS) committee invited a number of senior BBC figures to be quizzed on what has happened.

Amongst them were BBC chair Samir Shah, BBC Board member Sir Robbie Gibb and former independent editorial advisor to the BBC, Michael Prescott.

It was a chance to hear, at length, from some of the key players in this crisis.

Analysis editor Ros Atkins looks at what we learned from the answers the MPs received.

Fridon Kiria and Yi Ma
BBC Monitoring and BBC Verify

We’re looking into the impact of Ukrainian drone and missile attacks in southern Russia overnight.

The Ukrainian military’s general staff confirmed in a post on Telegram that it attacked a number of locations in Russia including an airfield at Taganrog in the Rostov region.

Rostov’s governor Yury Slyusar says three people have been killed in Taganrog and eight others injured. He also reports damage to businesses and residential buildings in the city, but makes no mention of hits on military infrastructure.

The Ministry of Defence in Moscow said its air defences had intercepted 249 drones.

Images from Nasa’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), which uses satellite data to detect active fires and thermal anomalies, shows heat signatures at the Taganrog airfield in the past 24 hours.

These signatures are not visible in the two weeks leading up to 23 November, which suggests they are unlikely to be part of routine activity.

Image source, Nasa FIRMS

Rob Corp
BBC Verify Live editor

Good morning from the BBC’s specialists in video verification, fact-checking, disinformation debunking and data journalism.

Our verification journalists are also assessing footage from Ukraine where Russian attacks have killed at least six people in the capital, Kyiv. Last night’s attacks come as diplomatic efforts to find a way to end the war continue.

The Ukrainian military has posted a picture of a damaged Russian aircraft following an attack on a base at Taganrog in the Rostov region. Ukraine says it was one of several sites targeted last night.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the Taliban government’s spokesperson claims that Pakistan conducted air strikes overnight which reportedly killed at least 10 people. We’re looking for verifiable material being posted online that we can feed into the BBC’s reporting today.

And BBC Verify’s policy and analysis correspondent Ben Chu has been looking into the impact of the two-child benefit cap which limits payments for larger families. It’s been reported that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will scrap it when she delivers her Budget tomorrow.